A Start in Life (5 page)

She returned home in the early afternoon, with her chicken, and wondered what to do next. By then she was dreamily depressed, half longing for the day to be over. She had not known that a state of waiting could be so consuming an affair. The flat was clean; the sun, now hot and strong, lay in a shaft over the window seat and along the old flowered carpet. Through the window she could see lorries loading and unloading in the depository. Miss Howe and Miss Mackendrick must have gone on one of their expeditions, for there was no noise or movement in the house. She sat in the shaft of sunlight and reflected how little there was to do when she was not working. She could not even settle to a book. In any event, she had been reading less since her first meeting with Richard.

At four o'clock she made a cup of tea and carried it back to her shaft of sunlight, as if seeking protection. She wished she had stayed on at Oakwood Court to see her father but it would have been too much of a rush to get back and she was afraid that all the shops would suddenly run out of chicken. Half reluctantly she made some sort of timetable: the preparation of the meal, the bath, the insertion of the dish into the oven, dressing, and then what Mrs Cutler called the finishing touches.

She had no confidence in any of it any more, and she knew that food, however mediocre, must be served with authority. Timing the rice was going to be particularly tricky. If Richard was due at eight, she should put the
water on to boil at seven thirty. She had not given this problem due consideration; it almost annoyed her to have to give it her consideration now. Problems to which there is no solution waste a lot of one's time, she reflected.

She became alarmed at her dispirited condition, picked up Balzac's
Un Début dans la Vie
, got annoyed by the excessive geographical information given in the first few pages, realized that she would have to travel fairly widely in the provinces when she got to France, and became slightly cheered by this faint indication that life might hold some substance beyond the events of this particular evening. Here she reached the heart of her curious distress, for if this evening did not turn out well, did not produce some indication of future progress, did not in fact elicit some sort of plan from Richard, she was devoid of resource for making anything happen to them both in the future. She really did not see that she could take days off and spend her life perusing the
Larousse gastronomique
in the event of being able to proffer another, identical, invitation. She did not realize that most men accept invitations to dinner simply in order to know where the next meal is coming from. Her father, who could have told her this, did not.

At five o'clock she washed up her cup and saucer, and started peeling vegetables. She sliced them and put them into cold water to soak. At five thirty she took them out of the water, browned the chicken in butter and olive oil, and arranged the vegetables in the bottom of a casserole with the jointed chicken on top. She tipped the wine into the casserole. It was ten minutes to six. Mrs Cutler had said a couple of hours. Bored with waiting, she put the dish in the oven and restored the kitchen to its former order.

She stayed as long as possible in the bath, then sprayed herself with a great deal of scent, brushed her hair for a very long time, and made up her face carefully. She was
in a sudden hurry to change from her weary daytime self to the more heightened self she would be that evening. Her heart had started to beat rather rapidly, and the colour was coming to her cheeks. She dressed her hair, and put on her grandmother's high-necked blouse and the tapestry skirt that showed off her slight figure. Pinning the cameo at her throat, she noted with approval that she was looking her best. It was twenty minutes to seven.

This, now, was the best of it. Waiting had become something to enjoy, to savour; waiting was almost a tribute she owed herself. The sun blazed strongly on the carpet, its shaft now pointing into a corner of the room; soon it would disappear and the curious white light of a June evening in Edith Grove would make lamps superfluous. The street noises diminished in volume as the evening rush subsided, but a sudden gust of sound, as the front door opened and closed, told her that Miss Howe and Miss Mackendrick were back. There was an agitation on the stairs: Miss Mackendrick was overtired and fretful and inclined to blame Miss Howe for the long wait at the bus stop. ‘We could have gone in the Gunter and sat down if you hadn't acted so daft,' said Miss Howe scornfully. Then, having delivered Miss Mackendrick to her door, she went muttering down the stairs to her basement.

Seven o'clock. Only another hour. The kitchen began to smell pleasantly of food. She filled a large saucepan with water, salted it, and measured the rice into a cup which she placed at the side of the stove. She took knives and forks and napkins – her grandmother's – into the sitting room and put them on the long low table in front of the sofa. The meal suddenly seemed endowed with success. She took the apple tart out of its box and laid it on a baking sheet, ready to go into the oven when the casserole came out.

At seven thirty she lit the gas under the saucepan of
water for the rice. Then she went into the bedroom to repowder her face. She noted with approval that her colour was still high and that her eyes were wide and confident. She felt careless of results now, committed to enjoying the present.

At a quarter to eight she switched off the gas under the pan of water, which was boiling furiously, went into the bathroom and sprayed herself once more with scent. She was extremely hungry but had neglected to buy anything in the way of normal food. There was not so much as a banana in the flat. She made herself a cup of coffee and drank it guiltily, standing at the window, her cheeks flushing deeper with the scalding heat of it. Then there was nothing for it but to refill the pan of water for the rice and start it boiling all over again.

At a quarter past eight she was feeling rather ill. She filled the pan of water yet once more and looked in the oven at her casserole. There was an ominous browning round the edges and she added more wine. She then powdered her face, noting with dismay that her colour had disappeared and that her eyes looked anxious and miserable. Nothing irrevocable has happened, she promised herself, she who was always early. He has been caught in a traffic jam. Or somebody has rung up at the last minute. Or he has had a slow puncture.

At eight thirty she telephoned Anthea to see if Richard had been absent from college that day.

‘Oh, Christ,' groaned Anthea. ‘Don't ever let this happen again. I can't stand it. Get him to take you out. But don't sit and wait.'

‘But if he's ill he can't help it. You can afford not to wait for Brian, you know you can. It's different for me; I've never had a regular boyfriend.'

‘Who has?' said Anthea, relapsing from common sense to common despair. ‘He'll turn up eventually. Just stick it out. And don't ask him where he's been. Don't bloody well ask him anything. Just don't invite him again, that's
all I beg.'

Crashing down the receiver, Ruth walked resolutely to the kitchen, filled the pan of water again, stood over it until it boiled, and with a gesture of supreme recklessness poured in the rice. She then added more water to the casserole, splashing her blouse in the process, and made herself another cup of coffee. She noted in passing that the apple tart was leaking through the pastry crust in the heat. Downstairs she could hear Miss Mackendrick scraping out the cat's litter into the dustbin.

At nine o'clock she felt so ill that she thought she must go to bed. The rice had cooked, stuck, and been thrown away. Wearily she refilled the pan with water and set it to boil. Her dismay was so intense that it was no longer measurable. All she knew was that he did not want to come. He did not want to see her. She did not matter. ‘
Je suis trop laide, il ne fera pas attention à moi.
' She sat on the sofa in the greyish light, her face as tragic as Helen's when she had played Madame Ranevskaya in
The Cherry Orchard:
her one excursion into serious theatre, and not a success. Ruth thought of her grandmother. She thought of her kind father and her beautiful mother. She had not valued them enough. The following day they would ask how her party had gone. Mrs Cutler would enquire over the outcome of her recipe. Anthea would have to be faced. Accounts must always be rendered, if only to oneself. The effort of holding back her tears blurred and wearied her features. She looked as if she might faint.

At half past nine Miss Howe shuffled out of her basement, the television blaring through her open door, and began her ritual locking up for the night. This involved wrestling with the bolt on the front door, and it would take a great deal of courage to ask her not to do it. Ruth did not bother. She went into the kitchen and poured the water away, switched off the oven, and walked out without clearing up. She turned down her bed and kicked off
her shoes. She was beyond feeling anything but relief that the hideous day was over.

At nine thirty five, Richard rang the doorbell.

Miss Howe shot out of her basement, more outraged than frightened. Miss Mackendrick opened her door very slightly, and Ruth could see her small elderly eye through the crack as she ran down the stairs. The blood surged up into her face again; she felt like someone saved from drowning or from a major street accident. The fact that she still had her slippers on, that the dinner was ruined, and that she was so tired that she doubted if she could stay awake much longer did not seem to matter. She would deal with these facts later, after she had appeased Miss Howe.

But she need not have bothered. Richard was already in the hall, stroking Miss Howe's cat, Tiger, and being treated to a confidential report on the state of Tiger's worms. Miss Howe, her thin silver plait of hair undone for the night and hanging down her back, could scarcely afford Ruth a moment's attention.

‘You think I should take him to the vet then, do you? I've tried the powders, but he's ailing, you can see it in his eyes.'

Richard draped the cat round his shoulders; Ruth and Miss Howe watched in fascination as he unleashed the full glory of his smile.

‘He'll be all right, won't you, old chap?' he said, bringing Tiger down like a scarf until he could rub his cheek on the cat's neck. Tiger was his slave. Miss Howe waited patiently, until he rewarded her with a friendly pat on the shoulder.

Richard being charming again, thought Ruth. Anthea, she knew, would have been less complimentary.

But he was so splendid! Ruth, brought up by parents who did not always hide their exasperation at her inability to grow faster or put on weight, felt inadequate. She did not doubt that the essence of physical attraction lay in
a superior degree of beauty, and she knew that she could only wait and wonder that he was there at all. For he had a choice; she had none.

Richard unwound the cat from his neck, bestowed it on Miss Howe, then, raising each foot in a classic gesture, removed his bicycle clips. Tossing them in his hand, and smiling at them, he announced that he was starving. Miss Howe, with Tiger in her arms, seemed reluctant to get back to her television set, and watched them as they both went up the stairs. Then, very slowly, all the doors in the house closed.

If she gave him the melon, Ruth thought, all that was retrievable of the chicken casserole, and most of the apple tart, she could pretend she was not hungry and the day would not be lost. Ramming her feet back into her shoes, she mentally rehearsed an explanation, should he need one. He did not. He ate carefully but not uncritically and did not praise her or thank her. Why should he, she thought. It looked disgusting. The apple tart had finally burst its pastry bounds and she had had to scrape it together and serve it in a pudding bowl. She looked at the fragments longingly; she could have eaten the lot.

‘Why don't you relax while I make the coffee?' she said.

He lay full length on the sofa, lit a small cheroot, and closed his eyes.

‘Bliss,' he agreed.

I have made him comfortable, Ruth thought, with pride. When she returned with the tray he appeared to be asleep. She placed it carefully on the long low table, then retired to an armchair, uncertain of what to do. Her face, she knew, wore its unredeemed expression again, desirous of pleasing, yet in its very anxiety failing to please. She drank her third, then fourth cup of coffee that evening, replacing the cup quietly in the saucer as if she were in a sickroom.

Richard, with a sudden gesture, raised his head and
shoulders, stretched out a hand, drained his cup of coffee, and said, ‘No more, thanks,' before sinking back on the sofa, with his arms folded behind his head.

‘Dear Ruth,' he said, after a longish pause. ‘Tell me what to do.'

‘About what?' She felt a little encouraged.

‘About so many things. About Harriet, for example.'

‘Harriet?'

‘Poor girl ran away from home this evening and came to me. That's why I was a bit late, incidentally, I couldn't leave her alone.'